Overage vehicle fuel ban in Delhi to be put on hold until November 1: CAQM

New Delhi: The Centre's panel on air quality in Delhi-NCR on Tuesday decided to put on hold the implementation of the fuel ban on end-of-life (EoL) or overage vehicles in the national capital until November 1, an official order said.

EoL vehicles are diesel vehicles older than 10 years and petrol vehicles older than 15 years. According to directions issued earlier, such vehicles were not to be given fuel in Delhi from July 1, irrespective of the states they are registered in.

Delhi Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa last week requested the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) to withhold action against such vehicles, calling the move "premature and potentially counterproductive" and citing "operational and infrastructural challenges".

Sirsa on Tuesday welcomed the decision and called it a "major relief" for the people of the national capital. He asserted that a vehicle ban must be guided by science and data rather than arbitrary age limits.

The CAQM, at a review meeting, decided to put on hold the implementation of the directions in Delhi.

The drive in Delhi will be launched along with five high-vehicle-density districts adjoining the national capital, including Gurugram, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar and Sonipat, from November 1 this year, the new order said.

Fuel stations in Delhi have installed Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras to detect EoL vehicles.

The cameras read the number plates of vehicles entering fuel stations and instantly check them with the central VAHAN database, which shows details like the vehicle's age, fuel type, and registration.

If the vehicle is found to be EoL, the system alerts the fuel station staff not to refuel it. The violation is recorded and sent to enforcement agencies, who are then required to take action such as impounding and scrapping the vehicle.

However, public discontent and outcry over the move prompted the Delhi government to request the CAQM to halt its implementation.

The installation of ANPR cameras in the five high-density districts is to be completed by October 31. The mechanism will be rolled out in the rest of the districts in the region on April 1 next year.

At the review meeting, the CAQM said the Delhi government brought to its attention several technical and operational issues in the implementation of the fuel ban on old and polluting vehicles and urged the panel to put the order on hold until the system meant to identify such vehicles is fully ready.

The Commission said the Delhi government had pointed out that the ANPR system is facing serious issues like software glitches, problems with camera placement, malfunctioning sensors and speakers, and a lack of full integration with vehicle databases of neighbouring NCR states.

The Delhi government also said the system cannot identify EoL vehicles in cases where there are issues with High-Security Registration Plates. These challenges, it said, need to be addressed through proper trial runs before the system is implemented.

The state government warned that implementing the order in stages could be counterproductive, as vehicle owners might simply buy fuel from nearby districts, which could even lead to illegal fuel trade across state borders.

The Chief Secretary of Delhi, in a letter dated July 7, also raised legal concerns under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.

He said applying the fuel ban only within Delhi, while similar vehicles run legally in other cities, may create legal confusion and raise fairness issues. He further said that declaring vehicles as EoL based only on their age, without considering fitness or pollution levels, could be unfair and may especially affect middle-class vehicle owners.

According to government data, there are 62 lakh EOL vehicles in Delhi, of which 41 lakh are two-wheelers.

The number of EOL vehicles in the entire NCR stands at around 44 lakh and these are largely concentrated in the five high-density cities.

The CAQM's directions come amid poor progress in removing old, polluting vehicles from the NCR despite previous orders from the Supreme Court and the National Green Tribunal.